Saturday, January 27, 2018

Here Are the Immigration Proposals Congress Is Considering

The plans vary widely, and the deadline to avoid another shutdown is approaching quickly.

Congress has just two weeks to come to a consensus on how to codify protections for the Dreamers—roughly 700,000 unauthorized immigrants who were brought to the United States as children—before government funding runs out February 8, or risk another shutdown scenario.

But there is no clear path forward for Congress to pass such a bill.

While a number of legislative proposals exist to replace the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which will expire on March 5, the plans vary widely. The primary guidance lawmakers have from the White House consists of four goals that were agreed to in a freewheeling meeting between President Donald Trump and members of Congress earlier this month: Curtailing so-called chain migration, ending the diversity visa lottery, securing funds for the border wall, and passing a DACA replacement.

In the Senate, a bipartisan group of lawmakers led by South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham and Illinois Democrat Dick Durbin has been working on a plan to replace DACA.

The proposal does not yet have legislative text, but it appears to be a compromise that would grant President Donald Trump funding for his wall on the southern border along with some other potential concessions in return for permanent legal status for immigrants currently living in the United States.